Sunday, June 7, 2015

The Pot Lobby appears to be moving ahead on July 1st. 2015 Cannabis Day Vancouver in spite of Vancouver Police telling Smart Approaches to Marijuana Canada that they would not let Cannabis Day proceed for 2015.

Smart Approaches youth member Connor Fesenmaier (18), along with retired RCMP officer Chuck Doucette, and Pamela McColl
met with Mike Serr of the VPD, directly after Cannabis Day 2014 and
they were assured the event would not proceed in 2015. The Chief along
with Mike Serr had drawn the line at
such an event being held on a family day and the country's birthday.
SAM Canada was told that the organizers of the event would be called in and told to not organize. In reviewing their website on June 7th. booth sales are brisk after opening on June 1st. 2015.

In
2014 Cannabis Day was a farmer's market pot event, with children and
adolescents exposed to the promotion of drug use, and marijuana was sampled out and sold on the grounds of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Vancouver
420 2015 resulted in 64 people being treated at St. Paul's hospital
with symptoms of nausea, vomiting, and various states of consciousness.

Vendors
at Vancouver 420 boast sales in excess of $80,000 for the day and home
delivery services were promoted. The cost of law enforcement, the health bills, all were picked up by the taxpayers of British Columbia.

In
Aurora Colorado a sixteen year old girl and her dog where shot when
they ordered home delivery marijuana and thugs with guns, masquerading
as home delivery, responded to the order
with the intent of robbing the customers of their money. The Vancouver
Police Department have confirmed
involvement of organized crime in the dispensaries. Penny Ballem writes
in her report for the plan to license the dispensaries that she would give demerit points to an applicant who was known to be problematic to the VPD. Why not close them outright ?

The marijuana dispensaries, and the farmer market style event planned for July 1st should be shut down. .

The delivery of marijuana for medical purposes should be limited to the program run by Health Canada - the MMPR.

We
have written to the Vancouver Police Department to confirm their
position and intended action on this issue and await their reply.

We have filed a complaint with the failure of the Vancouver Police Department to enforce the laws of Canada and close the 93+

Saturday, June 6, 2015

A
technological breakthrough that could virtually eliminate the drunken driving
that kills 10,000 Americans each year was announced Thursday by federal
officials, who said it could begin appearing in cars in five years.

The new
equipment won’t require a driver to blow into a tube, like the interlock
devices some states require after drunken-driving convictions. Instead, either
a passive set of breath sensors or touch-sensitive contact points on a starter
button or gear shift would immediately register the level of alcohol in the
bloodstream.

Drivers
who registered above the legal limit wouldn’t be able to start the car.

“The
message today is not ‘Can we do this?’ but ‘How soon can we do this?’ ” said
Mark Rosekind, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA). “It is a huge step forward.”

Eager to
introduce an advance that would rival seat belts or air bags in saving lives,
Rosekind said he would push to get the technology finalized, field tested and
put into use before the five to eight years anticipated by researchers.

Though no
cost-per-car estimate has been made, once the sensors go into general
production it’s anticipated the cost will be equal to that of seat belts or air
bags, about $150-$200 per vehicle.

Asked
whether there would be a federal effort to mandate use of the devices in all
new vehicles, Rosekind said he wasn’t sure that would be necessary.

“There’s
not going to be a parent who isn’t going to want this in their child’s car,” he
said. “There’s not going to be a business that’s not going to want this in
their vehicles.”

NHTSA,
safety advocates and automakers discussed whether the necessary technology was
feasible for years. Researchers funded by auto manufacturers and federal safety
regulators now have determined that it works.

They have
developed passive sensors that detect how much a driver has had to drink, but
are working on how best to package the sensors inside a vehicle. They have determined
how to package touch-sensitive devices but still need to refine the technology
to ensure accuracy.

“Touch-based
could happen faster because we know how to package it,” said Rob Strassburger,
head of the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety and vice president of the
Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a trade group for the world’s major auto
companies.

The
advances that lead to Thursday’s announcement at NHTSA headquarters were made
at a Boston laboratory run by Bud Zaouk.

“These
devices have to be quick, accurate and easy to use for the automakers to put
them on their platforms,” Zaouk said.

The goal
is to produce a device that will react in less than a second and function
without maintenance for at least 10 years or 157,000 miles. Sensors that detect
alcohol levels in the air can react in less than a second after a driver gets
into the vehicle.

The
technology is an offshoot of advances in sensory detection since the Sept. 11,
2001, terrorist attacks. With sudden demand for bomb detection sensors, the
ability of machines to scan people, packages and luggage for tiny trace
elements has expanded exponentially.

The
American Beverage Institute, a restaurant trade association, opposes the
alcohol detection system.

“Today,
NHTSA, MADD, and major auto makers presented what they claim will be a
voluntary system ... a description that directly contradicts their own past
statements,” the organization said in a statement.

Though
Rosekind said he didn’t think it would be necessary to make the system mandatory,
he did not preclude that option. MADD is unambiguous in its belief that the
system belongs in all vehicles.

In 2013,
10,076 people were killed in car crashes involving drunk drivers, federal data
shows. That was less than half the number of alcohol-related traffic deaths
recorded in 1982, when 21,113 people were killed. In the past 30 years, 401,404
people have died in drunken-driving crashes.

Colleen
Sheehey-Church, president of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, told an audience at
NHTSA that included scores of her group’s members about the 2004 death of her
son, who drowned in the back seat of a car driven into a river by a drunk
driver.

“This is
the future,” she said, gesturing toward a vehicle equipped with prototype
detection gear, “when drunk drivers will be unable to drive their cars. If this
technology was available in 2004, my son, Dustin, might be alive today.”

Endorsement

"All treatment centres in B.C. should get involved and support the Drug Prevention Network. As one collective voice we need to send the message that treatment works and it saves lives. There are recovery houses, treatment centers, private, government funded, long term, short term, detox, therapeutic communities etc. Let's help support prevention and help educate the public."